Stickman Readers' Submissions March 30th, 2005

My Sappy (Sentimental) Love Story

by Louie Lou


This is a sappy love story, not graphic details of intimacy but how two people from two different sides of the world came to be together… The story is not complete since we are still engaged and not married. I would rather be writing this story 5 years
from now, sharing the experience of living with a Thai woman in the US. Since Stickman requested more email this week, I thought I better not wait any longer. Because I have been reading Stick’s web site for over 2 years now. And like everyone
else I read all the archived stories, to catch up to the latest submissions. Just because like Stick, I would want to learn from other’s experience.

Back to my story, before you read more, just know that this is an honest recount of the events of my current relationship with a Thai woman. Not a Bar Girl, so I can’t give any insight in that experience. More about my background I
was raised here in the US but I was born in a Latin American country. I am a US citizen and have been working in my field for over 10 years. I’m 34 years old now.

He Clinic Bangkok

My Thai lady, she is from a good family background, born and raised in the suburbs of Bangkok. She has a degree just like me. She worked in her field of study but after a few years she decided to open her own business.

Around this time, she started to look for means to practice her English, since she wanted to keep in touch with the language. She posted a personal ad, and I was on the other side of world looking for an Asian woman. Needless to say, I responded
to her ad, we started to exchange emails.

During this time in my life, I was ending a relationship, with a Latin woman. There was nothing wrong, but there was no spark for me. Even though, the Latin woman was very attractive and beautiful. But there was something missing, the way
I knew is that we would make a date and I would make no effort to be there on time. Always coming up with the excuse of traffic or what ever. So, I decided to end this relationship and look for a partner on the net.

CBD bangkok

My Thai lady’s life, she was established in her business, she was happy with her family life, but something was missing, so she placed an ad just to practice her English and make friends over the internet.

At this time, we started emailing each other every day. And she sent many pictures of herself, at my request. It was funny because I would request more and more pictures, and her sister would ask why do you need to take pictures of yourself.
My lady told her why, and then her sister started helping her take more pictures…

After about 3 months, we decided to meet. But I did not have much vacation time left, so I requested that we meet on the west coast. She agreed and we met in Los Angeles.

The plan was she wanted to go camping and be with nature. I have never been camping, but I thought since she is flying all the way here, I should learn how to, and the best areas to go camping in California. I had the whole week planned out,
we would camp outside San Francisco then come back to Los Angeles, to go to Disneyland and Universal Studios.

wonderland clinic

As soon as we met, we were both happy to finally meet. On the drive up Route 1, she was very quiet. So, kept the conversation going by asking about her, her family, and Thailand. So, our first day together, we stopped along the way to sleep.
We got separate rooms, she was tired so while she slept I got something to eat. After 8 PM, I called to ask if she wanted to watch TV. So, she came to my room and we kept talking, all the while I’m asking about her and her thoughts and
feelings on many things.

This impressed her since she was not used to sharing her thoughts and opinions. The next day she wanted to go jogging, but after a few blocks and the coolness of the morning, we started walking and asked if I could hold her hand. She agreed,
and we spent a nice morning together.

Then we continued our journey north, just outside San Francisco, she tells me how US customs did not allow her to bring in her tent. My thought was, how are we going camping without a tent???

Later it will become obvious why she did not think it was important.

So, we stopped in the city, not part of the plan to going shopping for a tent. So, you can imagine that I was not comfortable. But I decided that this would be our first adventure together. SO, I stopped for gas, and asked for a sporting
goods store. I was to learn that the city has only two stores. One too far away, and the other just a few blocks away near a mall.

We needed to rush since the park ranger was only going to be there until 3 PM, our appointment to arrive at camp. So, we rushed to the store. When we got there, we were surprised that such a big store had just 4 or 5 tents left. A clerk told
us that due to the holiday weekend, they were having a sale. And the two large racks were filled, but there are only these few remaining. We shopped together, and made it an enjoyable part of our trip.

So, after getting the tent, we rushed to camp. We got lost a few times, but we got there about 30 minutes late. We setup camp together, which was very fun since we both did not know how to assemble our new tent. That night she explained to
me how camping is different in Thailand. It’s not like camping here in the US. In Thailand it’s more like a resort, and not like “roughing it” here in the US. In fact her family rents movies to watch while camping in
Thailand. Boy, was this culture shock for her or what???

We spent more of the night talking and laughing.

The next morning we took a long hard look around our camp site and we decided it was time to move on…

But our other camp site was really ‘roughing it” since it was a wilderness camp. This means that the camp site is a few miles away from the parking lot. And there is only cold running water at restroom sites.

The Forest Ranger showed us our camp site I reserved on the internet. And according to the map our parking site was not too far from our camp site. But that’s when we found out how the picture on a map looks a lot closer then the distance
you need to walk. During our hike, we encountered some locals. After walking for about 30 minutes, we saw an older lady walking back to her car. I greeted her and asked how much farther to the beach, which is where I thought our camp site would
be. She told us about another 30 minutes. I thanked her and wished her a safe trip home. I turn to my girl and said that good, only 30 more minutes. My girl goes ahead and says, the beach is closer than that. I asked her how does she know? She
said because the old lady took 30 minutes but since we are younger it should be only 10 or 15 minutes. I ask why? She said because the lady is OLD!!!

I laughed at my girl since where I come from, there is a saying, that goes, if you do not go by the advice of your elders, then how could hope to reach their age?

So, I countered my girl, saying that the lady was older than us, but she also looked like she knew how to hike. Which I did not know. So, I would bet my girl a kiss that the beach is 30 minutes away exact if not a few minutes longer since
we are new to this area. She agreed to the bet and it would under 30 minutes.

During this long time together, I found myself naturally talking about a future together with her. I know Stick is dying to say, MISTAKE!!! I can’t argue the fact that it was very soon to be talking that way, but I can defend myself
other than saying that the words came naturally out. Thought was involved since I never thought about these things until I met her. At least not in this great detail. About how long I can save money to start a business, and move to a warmer climate,
and make a strong foundation for our family.

We finally reached the beach only to find out that it was not our camp site. But we did reach it in 32 minutes. So, I won a kiss, which was collected there on the beach. It was a nice moment. So with that we still had to hike another mile
or so. Up hill!!! We finally reach camp, and man there was no one around. We setup camp, but we both wanted to take a shower before going to sleep. We hiked back to our car, then started our search for clean showers. After getting lost and asking
many people, we found a nice place. After we showered, it was already dark. But we thought we should make the hike back to our camp site.

Well, we start driving back to camp and the fog is rolling in from the ocean and on to the highway. It was a scene from a horror flick. We started talking about going back, since I did not feel comfortable walking over 2 and half miles in
the dark with a flashlight and thick fog. But she kept insisting that we should return to our camp site. Since there is no one watching our stuff. I’m thinking if there is anyone out there, they can not only use our stuff but take it too…
I can always buy again what ever they took.

So, we are driving up to our parking spot, when I see a pack of wild dogs… How do I know??? Because they cross the road right in front of our parking spot. There were about 5 or 6. If you talk to the ranger they are not WOLVES. Since according
to his infinite knowledge there are no wolves in this area. But isn’t that what people say in the horror movies before the wild killing spree happens???

Of course we never stuck around to find out what type of dogs they were, since I was not letting my girl go out there, since I could not assure her safety. I could hold off one or two but 6, that would get out of control too fast. But my
girl was determined to go back to camp.

So, to put an end to the discussion, I put it in simple terms. If we crossed paths with wolves out by the parking area, what other animals would we encounter deep in the woods?

That was enough to have her thinking about the possibilities of not getting to the camp site safely.

So, with my first victory in an argument under my belt, we needed to find a place to stay for the night. Lucky for us there were 2 hotels in the next town.

We asked at one place, they were all booked up on a Thursday. Very strange. The next place had one room available. And of course it was the most expensive room. Me the constant negotiator, I talked up the guy, then asked if we could get a
break in the price since there was no chance of him renting out the room any more that night since it was after 9 PM. He agreed.

Well, my victory cost me since the room was not cheap even with the price break. And to make matters worse, while looking for something to eat, we had our first argument.

It seems that since she could not find anything she liked to eat, she opted to not eat at all. Which I took to mean that she blamed me for not going back to camp where she had some Thai food and snacks.

After some time, I explained to her my feelings and she expressed that she is not blaming me, but she is not a big fan of eating when there is nothing she likes to eat.

I can imagine her frustration, here we are in the middle of the country side of California, where the local’s idea of foreign food is the salsa they pick up for nachos. And spicy food is the mild salsa. So, what I did was buy a couple
of bananas for her while I bought something for myself.

After we made up, we ate the bananas together.

It was nice sharing a bed with her instead the cold hard ground in the woods.

Once again we stayed up late talking and laughing. But this time we shared our first kiss. It was not a day I planned since we are in a hotel room I never knew existed, and we had our first argument, but we also shared an adventure.

I will continue our California Adventure in my next installment.

Stickman's thoughts:

Get to the spicy stuff. This is not a place for Mills and Boon novels!


nana plaza